


blood and lipstick, hiding yourself in a myth

by Merit



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Blood, Eldritch, Gen, ToT: Monster Mash, Treat, gothic horror, when the house wants to eat you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-21 03:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12448611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merit/pseuds/Merit
Summary: Cheryl knew what she had to do.





	blood and lipstick, hiding yourself in a myth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afterism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterism/gifts).



The snow was bright and blinding, a halo around the dead waters. The trees loomed dark and solemn around her. Her red hair escaped her bindings, flowing around her shoulders. Crimson stained her white dress and she went looked up the trees were mirrored in her eyes. Whispers ran out between the trees, choking her, driving her forward.

The water was dark against the ice. It felt like it was calling her name. She ran a hand down the bodice of her dress, the fabric edged with ice, her heart not beating. The wind picked up, a crescendo of howls and she could almost hear Jason's voice amongst the screams.

He was yelling -

When she jumped there was a moment of silence.

The water was a shock, driving the air of her lungs. The bubbles escaped quickly to the surface, already the hole she had jumped into seemed shrinking, ice building over. It would be months before anyone found her. The water tasted like death, like Jason, and she opened her mouth to scream. The water washed over her white teeth, dark and potent, overwhelming her, consuming her. Dark shadows flickered over the ice.

When she was in the water, she thought she saw faces in the ice, long leering mouths and bright eyes. It must have been Archie, but her stomach twisted, and her mouth was leaden with her lie.

The mouths had screamed at her, no sounds emerging, and they wanted her to die, to live. She had tasted blood in her mouth, the rest of her body screaming from the cold. She had wanted to live and there was a rush of water underneath her feet, slippery hands grabbing at her feet and ankles, and hadn't she always known about the strange currents of Sweetwater river.

She and Jason had counted on that.

And he had still died. Body tossed like rubbish. Father's hands coated in his blood and he hadn't even flinched.

When Archie reached for her, hands coated his bright, young blood, Cheryl was transfixed. It was Jason, and it was Archie, and she was crying, salt tears mixed with the dark water.

The air hit her like daggers and Cheryl welcomed the pain.

 

 

After Archie left, after Veronica left, Cheryl was alone in a strange house. It creaked, but not like Thornhill had creaked and the discord made Cheryl uneasy. It was old, but it wasn't Thornhill old, foundations rooted in the land.

Thornhill had been the last house in Riverdale for decades. The Blossoms, her father and grandfathers, blood on their hands, buying up any lots that circled their estate. Thornhill stood alone and Veronica's home was in the middle of Riverdale proper, the rush of cars outside, the billboards visible from the window, insistent signs she wasn't alone.

She was alone. Cheryl started shivering, from her core, fingers turning lavender. She hadn't gotten over the chill from jumping in to the river, shuddering in the middle of the day at the memory of ice closing over her, icy water driving into her bones. She still tasted the Sweetwater river water at the back of her mouth, brackish and icy, a promise.

She pulled the snowy sheets up to her chin, her nails a slash of red against the white, shuddering.

Hadn't she known what she had to do all along.

 

 

Two days after Thornhill was burnt to the ground, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, Cheryl stood on the ground where her bedroom once was. Tattered police tape, heavy footsteps and the ground churned by heavy vehicles. Snow was falling, gently, but the wind creeping through the trees was icy. She thought she heard someone sobbing, gasping for air, the broken sound of fire as a staircase collapsed. Cheryl turned slowly, the hairs on the back of her neck rising up, but the only sound was the wind howling louder.

She couldn't see her footsteps. She couldn't remember arriving but she must have driven here. She didn't see her car.

She hugged the coat closer.

Cheryl didn't scream when she realized it was Jason's old winter coat. It still smelled like him, and a little like her mother's tears, overlapped with Cheryl's own tears, as they hugged something that could have kept them whole. But she hadn't saved it, hadn't saved anything important before she burned the house down.

The ground crunched under her foot, glass and wood and everything the Blossoms had ever owned. She hugged the coat closer, till she felt like she was choking. The wind was screeching, a great raspy sound that rattled her bones. The trees looked closer than they had a moment ago. Dark evergreen branches stretching out into the void that was Thornhill.

When she started running, the wind sounded like it was shrieking her name.

She stopped when she almost ran into a tree. A tree she could have sworn hadn't been there before. The gray trunk was twisted with age, old limbs creeping around Cheryl, like an embrace from a relative she'd sooner forget. Carved into the wood were the initials of Blossoms of the last eight score years. She traced the lines of her parents initials, marked when her mother was a new bride. When she pulled her finger away, it was bleeding, as if cut from the very knife that had made those marks.

The blood fell to the ground in three heavy drops, scattering, shattering on the snow. The wind picked up, a shriek becoming ecstasy, and Cheryl hurriedly popped her finger into her mouth, tasting iron. She stepped on the blood, swearing it on the earth, the tree's roots.

The wind, the shrieks, dimmed till it was just a low murmur that set the hair on the back of Cheryl's neck on end.

She stepped back, a branch snapping like a broken bone under her foot. She turned, hair in her eyes as the wind lashed it, and through it she saw Thornhill.

Thornhill like she had never burned it to the ground.

Thornhill in the first glory, wood so fresh it gleamed, the menace driven deep into the mortar. It loomed over her, the faces of dead Blossoms, her father's face, _Jason's_ face, peering through the windows. They all had their mouths open.

She couldn't hear their screams.

She met Jason's gaze. He opened his mouth and fell back into the Sweetwater river, face smeared with blood.

Cheryl blinked.

And there was just ash and snow and mud. Thornhill was _gone_.

It sounded like a lie on her lips again.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Horrors' Point of No Reply.


End file.
